Monday November 5, 2007

I promised I would explain more about The Organization, and here I am: Criminal organizations for dummies.

It is still not clear how big The Organization was, but what is clear is that they were able to spread their branches in many directions. The Police and Counselor Chambers were able to answer some key questions:

How did The Organization find doctors to target, like myself? They had some informants among my colleagues: they were blackmailing some psychoanalysts in New York and in other big cities to force them to share with The Organization the names of their bipolar patients, and of their colleagues potentially treating more of those patients. Nobody knows how they got reserved information on those colleagues, but for sure they must have had a very powerful web of criminal interconnections.

How did they monitor those doctors and their patients, like James? They infiltrated contractor companies that work in buildings where the identified physicians have their practices; they would pose (or even get hired) as cleaning personnel, handy men, or security guards, to place microphones, and sometimes even cameras, in the offices. Once a bipolar patient like James came in the office for the first time, he was identified with a code, of which the Police found detailed traces in The Organization’s documents and files.

How did they take advantage of patients during their hypomania episodes? Once he had been identified as a target, The Organization most likely kept James under close surveillance, to capture the first signs of an incoming episode and plan for which criminal activities to assign to him and to each other unwilling participant. Sending texts from disposable phones and providing James with guns was probably the easiest step of the complex operation.

The most important of all questions: how did they discover the connection between hypomaniac episodes and predisposition to follow criminal orders? This is still unclear. And it bothers me, because this has for sure some groundbreaking medical implications: maybe it could help these patients overcome their episodes, or maybe even get rid of them! I hope the Police will keep investigating, to bring light to what’s still in the darkness.

I feel like I deserve to celebrate: I will enjoy this month of November, which is for now still very pleasantly warm, to get ready for Thanksgiving and to plan for my Christmas holidays. I truly hope nothing else happens to me or to my patients…